The blizzard raged outside the ziggurat like a feral beast. Its fierce winds screamed like a thousand damned souls while thunder crackled at random intervals. Inside the safety of the ziggurat, a fire was roaring to keep the two mortal creatures inside safe.
Tanomoan hundled under several furs, chirping unhappily whenever they heard thunder or a particularly loud gale of wind. Even Sapphire had a large fur wrapped around her shoulders, holding her hands out to the flames. She absentmindedly reached up to scratch her left antler.
"A fierce storm indeed," Bolfr observed as he took several logs of wood from their stock. He added the fuel to the flames carefully in order to avoid burning his own wooden claws. After that, he put a pot filled with water over the flames and grabbed two handfuls of pine needles they had been collecting for such a time like this. Shan'do Cerelial had taught Sapphire about how pine needles were an overlooked source of nutrients in times of scarcity. With their dwindling supply of honey, it would be a nice treat.
Tanomoan poked her nose out to sniff the boiling tea.
Again, Sapphire scratched her antler, growing a bit uncomfortable. Both of them were starting to become itchy, but Sapphire tried to ignore the sensation.
Once the tea was done, Bolfr put it into two bowls. Tanomoan chirped eagerly and almost drowned themself into the tea as she drank it despite still steaming. Sapphire blew on her tea and sipped at it. It had a hint of citrus to it and smelled quite aromatic.
Sapphire reached up and scratched her antler. Suddenly, she felt her fingers get wet by something. She quickly yanked her hand back down to look.
Blood coated her fingers. A bit of flesh clung to her nails.
"Bolfr!" Sapphire suddenly yelped. The Drust looked up from the fire and saw what was happening. To her shock, Bolfr immediately turned to look away, covering his face.
"You are shedding! I'm sorry, but I can't look!" He cried out.
"Shedding? Bolfr, there's blood coming out. What do I do?" Sapphire asked, panicked. She dropped her tea and touched her antlers with both hands. The soft velvet peeled away and blood spewed out. Her hands shook.
"Bolfr!" Tears started to run nearly as much as the blood.
Bolfr struggled internally. Frantically pacing back and forth, the Drust did not help her at first. But as soon as he heard Sapphire let out a little cry, he stopped.
"Thros and the ancestors forgive me!" He cried out, then turned around to look at her. By now blood soaked all of Sapphire's hair, staining it a bright red. He rushed over to and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Calm down. Your velvet is shedding."
He then started to help, deftly scraping off the velvet with his claws.
"Family members are the ones to help children with their first shedding. This is highly inappropriate. Yet there is no one else but me," Bolfr groaned.
"I'm sorry," Sapphire let out another sob. He kept scraping the velvet off with one hand and patted her back with the other.
"It is not your fault. I should have warned you, yet I thought your antlers would have another year or two of growth. They aren't yearly like animals' antlers."
He then explained how antlers would grow, then shed the soft velvet to reveal the pale bone under. Not only that, but the antlers would completely shed from the head several years after the velvet is lost. The second shedding was more painful, yet cleaner. Then the cycle would start over. They were for display instead of fighting like with deer. The bigger the antlers as well as the amount of sharpened points on each antler, the more attractive and impressive a Drust would be considered.
"Yours are so small. I've never seen a Drust with only two points on each antler."
"So I'm ugly," Sapphire said miserably.
"For a Drust, but you are also a human! Don't feel too self conscious about it. It is not like there are any Drusts left," He said the last sentence with a bit of sadness in his voice.
Finally, he managed to peel off the smallest scrap of flesh off her antlers. Rot sniffed the pile of bloody velvet and attempted to eat a piece, but Tanomoan shooed him away. Bolfr finally picked up the pile of velvet.
"A proper first shedding would result in a celebration. The family members would all come together and help burn the velvet as a sign of good luck."
With that, Bolfr tossed the velvet into the fire without ceremony. He then got some of their melted snow and cleaned Sapphire's stained hair until it was relatively clean.
"Why are sheddings so important? And why is it only family members can help?" Sapphire asked, trying to draw Bolfr out of his bitter mood.
He fidgetted uncomfortably.
"It is a sign of an child becoming an adult. Seeing another shed is like...looking at a stranger's naked body. Do you understand?"
Sapphire nodded earnestly, suddenly understanding why Bolfr felt so strongly about this.
"I really appreciate you helping me," She said, trying to cheer him up.
The Drust nodded, then almost seemed to smile.
"If I had eyes I would have started crying in the middle of it. Next time, you better do it yourself."
Sapphire again nodded, promising to not subject Bolfr to such an embarrassment again. Since she had dropped her tea, Bolfr fixed her another bowl of it. The warmth of the tea spread all over Sapphire's body as she sipped it and made her feel a lot better after quite a shocking day.
The blizzard seemed to die down a little. The winds quieted, yet did not stop. Exhausted by the day's stressful day, Bolfr laid down to nap. Rot climbed on top of the Drust and curled up on his skulled head. Tanomoan was passed out from the amount of tea they had consumed.
Only Sapphire and Tryg remained awake. The girl had found a mirror in one of the ziggurat's rooms and was now admiring her newly shed antlers. The bones were slightly pink and still wet but cleaned entirely of velvet. Bolfr had done a good job.
At first, the girl didn't hear the noise. She drank some more tea. It was only until the blizzard quieted down even more that Sapphire could hear the sound of a woman's voice. She sounded like she needed help.
Concerned, Sapphire rushed to the entrance of the ziggurat and opened one of the heavy doors partially. Snow blew in and the cold wind pierced her. The newly exposed bones of her antlers stung painfully from the cold.
Sapphire went out looking around for the woman. She waded through several feet of thick snow. None of the fetishes had alerted her or Bolfr to an intruder but she assumed the blizzard had broken them or rendered them inert somehow.
Through the whiteness of the blizzard, a small woman wrapped heavily in cloth and fur was stumbling through the woods. She cried out for help. Sapphire went to her aid.
"Hello? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Just then, the woman seemed to grow several feet in height. The heavy snow around started to shift. Now much taller than Sapphire, the woman shed the clothes.
Adalger turned to face her. "Hello, Kalma."
Sapphire gasped and attempted to back up in the snow. Several wicker man and beasts crawled out of the thick snow. Adalger eyed Sapphire's antlers. And Bolfr would most likely still be asleep. Tryg might come to her aid quicker, but he was one ghoul against entire group of wicker creatures. She briefly wondered if she could transform and fly away.
"Oh look. Your first shedding. So you are a woman now. Gorak Tul will be happy to hear that."
Sapphire hissed at him. "You can tell Gorak Tul to go to hell!"
Adalger sucked his teeth. "Now is that any way to talk about your grandfather?"
"The grandfather that wanted to eat me!"
She couldn't run through the snow. The wicker beasts had now surrounded her completely. Adalger then did something unexpected. He knelt down and put out his hands in a submissive manner. The wicker beasts all bowed down.
"About that. Gorak Tul has had a change of heart. Would you believe it? Not only that, but he's told me to apologize for all my previous behavior." He said all of this through gritted teeth and with obvious reluctance.
Gorak Tul. Her relative that had tricked her into Thros and planned to eat her. Supposedly he had a change of heart and did not want to do so anymore. Sapphire bared her teeth back at Adalger. "I don't believe it!"
The Huntsman then stood back up, scowling.
"Not unexpected but clearly I would have already cut your tongue out and swallowed it if I didn't fear Gorak Tul's wrath."
That sounded accurate. Adalger had shot her on sight last time. If he had not been ordered to not harm her, she might have been killed by now. Yet, there was some hope. Sapphire suddenly realized she was not defenseless. She knew Drust magic now. And she especially knew how to control another person.
Sapphire started to build up the magic required, but Adalger quickly snapped his gaze to her. He then shortened the distance between the two of them before Sapphire could react. He then backhanded her hard, causing Sapphire to fall into the snow.
"How dare you! Think you are some witch? A little hexweaver? I have the blessing of Gorak Tul himself!"
He grabbed her by the freshly shed and still sensitive antler. Sapphire screamed from the pain.
"But at least Gorak Tul will be happy to hear that you have already started your education. Instead of eating you, he wants you to help bring him back to the world of the living."
Sapphire then used her magic to blast Adalger away and then managed to turn into an owl. She attempted to fly off but as soon as she cleared the trees, the winds were too strong for her. The winds tossed her around.
She couldn't figure out where she was. Desperate, Sapphire beat her wings in an attempt to reorient herself but she couldn't. The winds then slammed Sapphire against the snow.
Sapphire turned back to herself and looked around. She couldn't see much through the snow but, it seemed there were no trees nearby. Either the snow blurred away the trees or she was no longer in the forest. She then stood up, trying to figure out what to do. Should she head back to the forest? Or stay hidden by the still ongoing blizzard?
She was cold. Sapphire rarely felt cold, yet now she shivered.
Something like thunder started to boom, yet the sound was too regular to be thunder. Sapphire huddled down in fear, expecting Adalger. Yet the noise came from above, and suddenly a dark mass flew overhead and landed only closely.
To Sapphire's shock, a familiar sight greeted her. The large being was the skeletal creature was a frost wyrm. Its heavy body swirled around. A dark saddle had been harnessed to the wrym's back. On top of it sat a hooded rider, who quickly unstrapped themselves from it. They then jumped down from it.
They pulled out a small object and looked at it intently for a moment, then looked at Sapphire.
She gave them a defiant look as they started to walk toward her. She saw they were heavily armored. When they got too close, Sapphire backed up a step and snarled.
"Stay away from me. Who are you?"
The hooded figure stood there briefly, studying her. They then reached up one gloved hand and pulled back the hood.
"I can't believe it is really you. Oh Saphi, how I've missed you so much," Marwyn said, his voice filled with all the warmth that an undead could muster.
Sapphire's breath caught in her throat. She tried to speak, but her shock was too much. The deathknight came forward and wrapped his arms around her as tightly as he could and kissed her on the forehead. The girl shakily returned the hug. She couldn't process this. At first she thought he was some Drust trick, but Bolfr had taught her how to look past such illusions. This was really Marwyn.
The deathknight then pulled away and took one of her hands in his own.
"Come on. Let's go home."
Sapphire did not even think to hesitate or refuse. She let Marwyn lead her to the frostwyrm.